The cystic fibrosis microbiome in an ecological perspective and its impact in antibiotic therapy

The recent focus on the cystic fibrosis (CF) complex microbiome has led to the recognition that the microbes can interact between them and with the host immune system, affecting the disease progression and treatment routes. Although the main focus remains on the interactions between traditional pathogens, growing evidence supports the contribution and the role of emergent species. Understanding the mechanisms and the biological effects involved in polymicrobial interactions may be the key to improve effective therapies and also to define new strategies for disease control. This review focuses on the interactions between microbe-microbe and host-microbe, from an ecological point of view, discussing their impact on CF disease progression. There are increasing indications that these interactions impact the success of antimicrobial therapy. Consequently, a new approach where therapy is personalized to patients by taking into account their individual CF microbiome is suggested.Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013-CEB and UID/EQU/00511/2013-LEPABE units. This study was also supported by FCT and the European Community fund FEDER, through Program COMPETE, under the scope of the Projects “DNA mimics” PIC/IC/82815/2007, RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462), “BioHealth—Biotechnology and Bioengineering approaches to improve health quality”, Ref. NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000027 and NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000025—RL2_ Environment and Health, co-funded by the Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2 – O Novo Norte), QREN, FEDER. The authors also acknowledge the grant of Susana P. Lopes (SFRH/BPD/95616/2013) and of the COST-Action TD1004: Theragnostics for imaging and therapy

Concurrent calorimetric and interferometric studies of steady-state natural convection from miniaturized horizontal single plate-fin systems and plate-fin arrays

Concurrent calorimetric and interferometric studies have been conducted to investigate the effect that reduction of the base-plate dimensions has on the steady-state performance of the rate of natural convection heat transfer from miniaturized horizontal single plate-fin systems and plate-fin arrays. The effect was studied through comparison of the present results with those of earlier relevant calorimetric, interferometric, or numerical studies. Results shown that a reduction of the base-plate area by 74% increased natural convection coefficient by 1.5 times to 26.0 W m−2 K−1 for single fin systems and by 1.8 times to 18 W m−2 K−1 for fin arrays in the range of the base-plate temperature excess of 20–50°C. A simple correlation for the Nusselt number of miniaturized horizontal plate-fin arrays is proposed in the range of Rayleigh number divided by the number of fins to the 2.7 power from 2 × 10 to 5 × 105